My Date From Hell
by anne.kitty8
Summary: The YA romantic comedy, Greek mythology fireworks continue to fly in My Date From Hell. Breaking up is easy; dating is deadly. Based on The Blooming Goddess Triology. Disclaimed. (Please read full summary inside)
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:**

Cammie Morgan's junior year has been a bit of a train wreck. After the world's greatest kiss re-awakened Cammie's true identity as Persephone (Goddess of Spring and Savior of Humanity), she fought her dragon-lady guidance counselor to the death, navigated mean girl Tina's bitchy troublemaking, and dealt with the betrayal of her backstabbing ex, Zach (sexy Prince of Darkness). You'd think a girl could catch a break.

Yeah, right.

With Zeus stepping things up, it's vital that Cammie retrieve Persephone's memories and discover the location of the ritual to stop Zeus and Hades. So when Aphrodite strikes a deal that can unlock Cammie's pre-mortal past, what choice does the teen goddess have but to accept?

The mission: stop media mogul Hermes from turning Tina into a global mega-celebrity. The catch? Aphrodite partners Cammie and Zach to work together … and treat this suicide mission as a date. Which could work out for Cammie's plan to force Zach to admit his feelings for her–if she doesn't kill him first.

Add to that the fact that BFF Preston's love life and other BFF Bex's actual life are in Cammie's hands, and suddenly being a teenager—even a godlike one—seems a bit like … well, hell. Whatever happened to dinner and a movie?

Chapter One

**The Cheat Sheet to My Life Thus Far**

Cammie Morgan: Me. Sixteen. Phenomenal underachiever. Life turned upside down by a midnight kiss from a bad boy that awoke my true identity as Persephone, Goddess of Spring. Am supposed to be savior of humanity in war between Hades and Zeus. I've got Persephone's most excellent powers, but no access to her memories. So much for coasting through life.

Persephone: Was kidnapped by Hades' son Kyrillos as the "screw you" move in his war against Zeus. She became Kyrillos' big love. Sixteen years ago, they plotted cosmic coup to usurp their dads, Hades and Zeus. Murdered by ? ? for ? ? No clue. Her spirit ended up in my newborn body. Would probably have murdered her myself because she's so annoyingly beloved by all.

Kyrillos (a.k.a. Zach): Stupid bad boy who kissed me. Also Persephone's boyfriend. Talk about complicated. Public enemy number one for betraying me and my friends by first stealing friend's magic chain in order to have his own revenge on Hades, then abandoning us and leaving us to die in an exploding dragon's lair. Plan to blast on sight if I ever see him again. Except that somehow Zach and I are supposed to defeat Hades and Zeus and save humanity together. Payback will have to be more painful assault than full-on murder.

Preston: My best friend who turned out to be Prometheus, the god who gave fire to mankind. Has major grudge against Zeus. Responsible for spiriting Persephone's dying body away and making some cockamamie deal with a crackpot witch at the cost of his own powers to put Persephone into baby Cammie. Memory spell included. Preston warded up our boarding school, Gallagher Academy Progressive, to keep me safe, which is good because now Hades' and Zeus' minions hang about trying to get in and kill me. True owner of (now-stolen) cool magic chain that is one hell of a weapon. Between getting ripped off and having his plans bunged up by the kiss that jumpstarted my goddessness, Preston's not a happy camper these days.

Demeter: Persephone's mom who roamed the earth in grief when Persephone was kidnapped. Hasn't bothered to make my acquaintance, but I'm hopeful she's just in grave danger and will greet me with arms outstretched at first possible opportunity. Otherwise, sole maternal figure in my life is limited to drunk, adoptive socialite mother Rachel. Shudder.

Bex: Gorgeous best friend. Obsessed with bloodthirsty creatures. 100% human. Still weird.

Tina: Power-tripping Yoga girl who spouts new age BS to rule the school. Now also evil asshat with magically enhanced popularity thanks to a tattoo on her arm, given for being a willing handmaiden to the insane dragon that almost killed the rest of us. Mutual hatred. Has not forgiven me for locking her in a bathroom and taking her place to go meet Zach, resulting in aforementioned stupid kiss. Because that worked out so well for me. *snort*

Liz: Offbeat human classmate. My awakening triggered her own prophetic powers, since she is a descendent of the original Oracle, Elizabeth. Her mystical pronouncement of "one above one below alive awake a key it is no more it is no more," did seem to support Zach's earlier assertion that when "two became one"—i.e. he and I had sex—his power as son of Hades and mine as daughter of Zeus would allow us to seize control and, at the very least, stop our dads from using Earth as a battleground. They blame natural disasters for their damage. Humans have been the casualties long enough. That is going to change. On my watch. Liz may also have prophesied that I was "an instrument of destruction" but really, that could be interpreted in so many ways, I can't afford to worry about it just now. I have to spend all my worrying on my continued existence.

Hades: Lord of the Underworld. Despite having kidnapped Persephone, he was probably not the psycho who tried to kill her. Preston and I are on the hook, however, for having poisoned him during a little B&E visit to the Underworld recently. Which we totally didn't do. Still, I'm hoping being poisoned keeps him busy. Hades hates Zeus more than hates me though, so you know, an upside.

Zeus: Were Zeus to put up an Internet dating profile, it would read as follows: Top god. Dark hair, brown eyes, mega-rich, loves action films, pistachio ice cream, and suits. Interested in warfare, himself, and adultery. Brunettes preferred. My, well, Persephone's dad. He recently kidnapped me up to Olympus. Father/daughter time not going so well. Probably time to bolt.

**A/N: Like? Please review what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

**CHAPTER TWO**

Despite the lack of clearly marked exits, I'd figured fleeing Olympus was going to be a straightforward "blow-this-joint" operation.

Silly, silly me.

"You seem to have two choices," Zeus' voice boomed around me via some invisible speaker system. "One, you meet me in the courtyard and we discuss this like rational adults. Two, you don't." His voice was scarily calm. But his subtext was blatant "co-operate or I'll crank your hurt to eleven and enjoy doing it."

I pressed myself deeper into the shadows behind a statue of his giant head, and willed myself not to slink back to my father like a beaten dog in the face of his command. Pops did commanding really well. Which, given his position as Lord of the Gods and twenty-foot-tall Big Kahuna, was probably to be expected.

"Two it is," Zeus said. _Click_. _Click_. Pops carried around a fancy silver pen that he obsessively clicked. I'd thought it disconcerting before, but now, with him after me? It came through the speakers like atmospheric menace in a bad horror film.

I had to get out of here. I rolled my shoulders back, feeling the tension in my neck. My poor head felt stuffed full of cotton; a woozy by-product from the drugs Pops had been feeding me during my stay in Olympus. The ever-present scent of flowers in the air didn't help matters. Once pleasant, the aroma was now cloying.

Overcome by a momentary wave of dizziness, I placed one hand against the cool stone of the statue's massive ear to steady myself. _Focus, Cam_. Carefully, I peered out from behind the chiseled representation of my father's ego to survey the cavernous gallery.

Surprisingly tasteful spotlights illuminated hundreds of statues ranging in size from about ten to ninety feet. Each depicted Zeus posing in all his destructive glory, their shadows creating a creepy undertone of deadly narcissism.

The door which I'd snuck through to hide in here lay to my far left, but that way out was a no go. I could hear footsteps running up and down the corridor—no doubt everyone on the hunt for me.

Zeus' minions were in big trouble, which made them hell bent on finding me. Return the kid or suffer the shame (death) of losing a sixteen-year-old.

I touched the sapphire pendant hanging around my neck for good luck.

About the size of a small egg, it had been given to Persephone by Demeter. It was engraved on one side with a sheaf of wheat and on the other with a thunderbolt—the symbols of my parents. It fueled my resolve.

I readied my power to call up at a second's notice and willed myself to leave my hiding spot. I dashed across the room, ninja-ing my way across the marble floor to the far end, the _Mission Impossible_ soundtrack in my head as I zipped between the gaudy statues.

The hair on the back of my neck bristled. The damn things freaked me out. I expected one of them to come to life and smite me. I wove around one of the largest statues, gilded entirely in gold, and spied a large patch of sunlight at the far end of the room. As I scooted toward it, my toe whacked something hard, causing me to stumble.

I stopped and knelt down. A large iron ring was set into one of the blue-veined blocks of marble tiling the floor. The ring felt warm and heavy as I tugged on its hammered surface. The block didn't shift but on closer inspection I could see a hinge, so Prestonretically, it should open.

Except, it obviously led downwards. And since that was the traditional territory of dungeons everywhere, not so much a direction I wanted to go. If Olympus even had dungeons.

Best not to find out.

I pivoted soundlessly, scooted over to the dust motes dancing in the sunshine and looked up at a windowless skylight. Beyond it lay nothing but the always perfect, bright Olympus sky. The warmth on my face felt delicious, even from this far below it. I shaded my eyes with one hand and peered up, guessing the distance. At least a hundred feet.

Lucky for me, heights were not an issue.

Unless I looked down. I really hated looking down.

I called up my stage one goddess power. A ribbon of moss green light flew from each of my palms, like vines. I fired the ends up to secure around a massive, hideously ornate crystal chandelier beside the skylight and began reeling myself up to freedom.

The most radically awesome thing about Greek powers is that they trump laws of physics. No way should light behave like it has substance. Then again, no way should my entire teen existence have been turned upside down with a kiss that had unleashed my true goddess self. Which just proved that truth was stranger than, well, everything.

About a third of the way up, the chandelier groaned and shuddered, swaying dangerously. My legs flopped from side to side. I froze until the steroid lighting fixture and I had stilled. I tilted my head up, coughing as plaster dust rained down squarely on my face.

Wiping my eyes with my forearm, I geared down to a crawl, inching myself up very carefully, gaze focused on the chandelier to see if it wanted to raise any more protests. All seemed well, so I continued my slow ascent, trying desperately not to think about the growing amount of space under my feet.

The track in my head switched up from "Mission Impossible" to "I Will Survive."

"Cammie" More cool detachment in Zeus' voice as the speaker system came back to life. Weren't dads supposed to sound mad, instead of psychopathically disinterested? "While I appreciate that for a human, you are showing a lot of pluck, you are also exhibiting quite the annoyingly short-sighted will to live."

_Click_. _Click_. The pen made me think of claws clacking on the floor as the monster approached. Which, I guess, was apt.

My arms were starting to tire from going at a snail's pace. I ignored their trembling and the chandelier's protests to focus on the sunshine above growing warmer on my head. I could smell the lemony fresh air. That had to be a good sign.

Yes, think positive thoughts. Like this would get me out of Olympus somehow and I wasn't currently doing the 'ole "frying pan into the fire" routine. That the overinflated lampshade above me wouldn't come loose and pancake me to the ground in a mass of glass shards and pulpy flesh.

Or better still, that I lay comatose in a boring hospital bed and this was all a figment of brain damage. That would be nice.

"It would go far better for our relationship if you would behave more like your essential Persephone self. A lovely girl."

Ah yes. The familiar refrain of "Persephone, how great thou art." I was sick of it.

Demeter, my real mother, had roamed the earth in grief when Persephone was abducted down to the Underworld. But when I'd been awakened, she hadn't even sent me a postcard. Hadn't bothered to make herself known to me at all. Instead I'd been stuck with my drunk, adoptive, socialite mother Rachel, whose one act of kindness was to keep me at Gallagher Academy with my friends. Something she threatened to rescind whenever I pissed her off.

Then there was Zach. He'd had this God-defying love for her. And even Zeus claimed fondness, which for him was favored status.

Persephone inspired adoration from parents and boyfriends alike. Cammie got absentee parenting, death threats, and betrayal.

With every passing day since I'd found out about Persephone, I'd felt less and less whole. Here _I_ was, Cammie, my human self, which until recently was the only personality I'd ever expected to have, teenage mood-swings notwithstanding. Then my goddessness had surfaced.

While I now had special bonus features like kick-ass powers, sped up healing time, and a destiny to save humanity, I was still, for all intents and purposes, human. First and foremost, still me, Cammie.

So why did I feel like some kind of container for the magnificence that was Persephone?

Why did I feel like I was competing with her?

And losing.

I peered up to see how much farther. Another twenty feet and I'd be outside.

Shoot me now. Pops was still waxing poetic about Persephone. I glared up at the vicinity of his voice. "Your perfect daughter planned on coup d'étating your ass. So bite me." That felt good. Even if he couldn't hear me.

"That was all Kyrillos. He led my Persephone astray. I don't like him," Zeus said flatly.

Whoops. Guess he could hear me. "Well, goody. We have something in common. I don't like Zach either."

As if my voice GPS'd my location, the door I'd originally entered through crashed open below me and Zeus stepped into the room, expensive weighty pen held loosely in his right hand. _Click_._Click_. His large, broad thumb was getting a real workout on that pen's button. "Leaving us already?"

I startled and froze, dangling in mid-air, more than a bit uneasy at his appearance. I cleared my throat and went for nonchalant. "Well, hospitality Chez Zeus leaves a lot to be desired. No mint on the pillow, room service is more jail than four star, and check out time seems to be never."

A couple of his minions entered to flank him. Called Photokia, or as I thought of them, Gold Crushers, they would have fit right in at a biker bar for the otherworldly. Leather clad, seven feet tall, bald, and solid muscle, with gold thunderbolt tattoos snaking over their heads, these dudes shot lightning from their glowing gold eyes. Needless to say, our previous run-ins had not been pretty.

Time to Speedy Gonzalez my ass out of there. I amped my ascent to "blur," feeling the wind against my face as I streaked upward. The chandelier shuddered violently, moaning its displeasure, but it was still definitely the lesser of all the jam-packed evils here.

So near and yet so far. In a fluid motion, one of the Gold Crushers flew through the air at me. He tackled me to the floor, the fall snapping my light ribbons as I crashed down on top of him with a hard thud. His body was slightly less cuddly than an anvil.

Holy Bex that hurt. That was gonna bruise.

I kneed him in the crotch, grateful that it worked on bad guys of every species, scrambled to my feet, and fired my light at him. Once I'd gotten over the initial horror of my capabilities when my powers had first surfaced, I'd stayed firmly in "kinda impressed with myself" territory.

I rather enjoyed the whole process now.

My vines caught the Gold Crusher around the ankles, entombing him like a fly in a spider's web. The light spun faster and faster, wrapping him tighter and tighter. He began to age rapidly, his muscles sagging, his skin wrinkling, until with a _poof_, my light constricted and he disappeared into dusty oblivion. I smirked in victorious delight and snapped my light back into my palms.

Pops had the gall to slow clap me. "Lovely display."

He brushed a speck of lint off of his jacket, all pimped out in a cream linen suit with a matching lightweight fedora. Obviously custom made, unless there was some kind of Big 'n Tall for the giant Greek mover and shaker. From the gleam on his nails to his smooth shaven cheeks and perfectly coiffed hair, dad was a big old metrosexual.

The cute grey leggings and tunic I'd originally been wearing when I'd arrived were long gone, and I felt like a hobo in my loose, none-too-white pajama-type outfit, dirty bare feet and hair desperately in need of a wash.

I cast a wary glance at the remaining Photokia, calculating my next move. Gold Crushers and I didn't have the best relationship. Mainly because they were big, grudge-holding babies with an unquenchable thirst for death and destruction. And seeing as how I had annihilated a bunch of their brethren (creaturen?) during our brief acquaintance, I shuddered to think what any one of them would do with me now.

But I would never show them my fear.

I gave the Photokia a saucy fingertip wave. "Hey there, Gold Crusher. What's up, you snaggle-toothed freak?"

Zeus' eyes crinkled in amusement. "Don't taunt the minion, child," he said. He lifted his fedora to sweep a lock of dark hair from his forehead. "It's bad form."

The Photokia didn't seem to find me as funny. Not even in a "laugh at" not "with" kind of way. The expression he turned on me spoke of pain happily bestowed. His eyes began to glow.

Zeus held up a hand to cut off his minion's assault. "How about a deal?" he asked me. I don't think he was even aware that he had sped up his pen clicking, now going about 100 clicks a minute.

I know this because it kept pace with my racing heartbeat.

He caught me staring at his hand. His expression darkened.

A shiver ran through me.

I forced myself to meet his eyes as my stomach churned with the jitters. "What kind of deal?" I inched my way back under the chandelier in case I needed to book it out of there.

"Tell me where you and Kyrillos are planning to enact this ridiculous coup d'état ritual of yours and I'll let you go."

My brow furrowed. "I have no idea. I don't have Persephone's memories."

Zeus looked at me thoughtfully. "Yes, you keep saying that," he murmured.

Huh? "'Keep?' You've asked me this before?" Of course. "That's why you were drugging me, wasn't it? What'd you use?"

Zeus waved me off. "There's truth serum in the water. And you know, hydration is essential to good skin." He made a circular motion around his face. "You practically glow with youth and vitality now. In the cheeks. Also, I'm immune to the more adverse effects."

Yeah, because younger, more radiant skin was a top priority of mine right now. I shifted my weight and glared up at Pops. "_That's_ why you kidnapped me. To get the location. Why?"

Zeus pursed his lips, considering. "Is this where I do the arch-villain bit and divulge my plan?"

I fired my index finger and thumb at him, gun-style, but stayed on high alert. I readied myself to move quickly, weight on my toes. "Got it in one."

He shot me an assessing glance. "Persephone wasn't mouthy like you."

I stiffened involuntarily.

Zeus pulled a tube of moisturizing cream from a pocket, uncapped it and squeezed a blob into his hands. "Touchy, are we?" He rubbed the cream in with brisk strokes. "While 'prophesied' doesn't mean guaranteed, always better to be safe than sorry when dealing with attempted coups. Your turn."

I shook my head, doleful. "I wouldn't want to overstay my welcome. We can catch up another time. I'm free on Thanksgiving. We'll celebrate our dysfunction with turkey and stuffing."

Zeus pinned me in his gaze. "I don't think so. In the event of any other possible candidates coming forward with the ridiculous notion of overthrowing me, I'd like to destroy the ritual location. Can't go around battling every spawn I ever produced."

Pops spawning. Could I memory repress _that_ visual?

I exhaled deeply. This conversation, like my entire relationship with my father, was hopeless. But since I couldn't let him seek and destroy this location that was so vital to stopping him, I had to get out of here.

"Can't help you. And won't." Planting myself in a firmer stance, knees slightly bent, I narrowed my eyes at the remaining Photokia, and made a "bring it" motion with my right hand.

"If you insist," Zeus said. He snapped his fingers and in an instant a half dozen more Gold Crushers had shown up.

Gold lightning lit the sky as the minions came at me, eyes blazing. I couldn't dispose of them on a ribbony-death-by-ribbony-death basis, so I had to boost things up to the next level of my power.

I fired single blasts of green light from my eyes and palms, obliterating them one by one as I ducked and bobbed, dodging their blasts. Seven against one.

Whatever.

The secret weapon bonus of dad's minions was that he had an endless supply. So even though my superior goddess power made me capable of taking them out quite easily, if Zeus ever set them full force against me, I'd be exhausted (and thus dead) before he'd barely tapped into his stockpile. That fact currently listed as number six on my list of "Final Showdown Terrors."

Lightning scorched across my side. I let out a mangled curse.

"Language," Zeus cautioned me.

With a growl, I took out the rest of them before they could do any more damage to my breakable human exterior. Done, done, and … done.

Panting, I swung my eyes toward Zeus. Me and him.

He tilted his head with a cat-like grin. "I think you missed one."

Hundreds of Photokia poured into the room.

Bastard.

I fired my vines upwards, wanting out through the skylight, since flight seemed more prudent than fight.

Zeus smirked and gestured with his hand. "Not yet, my girl."

The minions lunged. I managed to swing past them and land on the head of one of the statues, calling my light back inside me. I planted myself in a solid stance, then dug my toes into the sculpted locks of Zeus' hair to get a better grip on the slippery stone. "You're contravening basic parenting commandment number seven, Pops. 'Thou shalt not try to kill thy kid.'"

Forget escaping. I had to take the Gold Crushers out first. I reached down deep within myself, ratcheting up to my highest power level.

I blasted a full-body, all-powerful shockwave of green light, almost falling off the statue since the recoil on that move was a kicker.

Damn! The move destroyed all the Gold Crushers, as I knew it would, but left my father standing infuriatingly intact.

Power-wise, firing the shockwave severely depleted me. I was too limp and spent to do more than heave while hunched over, hands braced on my legs. I'd never done it more than once without needing to majorly recharge, which required being outside. Being Goddess of Spring meant my powers were tied to the outdoors. I was the ultimate solar battery. The light filtering down from above was helpful but wouldn't totally recharge me.

Since my kaboom hadn't taken Pops out, my only option was to flee. And fast.

_Please let me have enough power to ribbon myself out of here_.

I gave 'er. And all I got were two weakly glowing palms.

I leaped off of the statue hoping I wouldn't break both legs, as dozens more Photokia showed up and attacked me. Kind of like being caught in a sea of battering rams.

The bodies dog piling on top of me knocked the breath right from my body. I couldn't blast them, didn't even really have the power to fight them at all. Before I could catch my breath and attempt _something_, I heard Zeus say, "Let's wrap it up, shall we?"

I was plucked from the pile by a large, knobby, miniony hand and thrown high into the air. Before I could process what was happening, Zeus called "Pull!" and lightning enveloped my body.

Son-of-a-bitch, he was skeet shooting his own kid.

"Pull!"

My body snapped back painfully, somersaulting with the force of the electric blasts. I tried to blindly send out my light vines but nothing came out.

"Pull!"

My body spasmed uncontrollably as more lightning struck it. My head snapped to the right, my fingers flailed like I enthusiastically counted by tens and my legs made a pumping motion much like cartoon characters as they gear up to run, all while still flying upwards through the air.

Lightning shots give quite the endorphin kick. The last enveloping hit knocked my energy from foul ball to home run. My eyes widened on a manic high. I felt pleasantly warm. Colors were sharper, no detail too small to notice. _Whooeeee_.

It passed five seconds later, leaving me falling in wet noodle mode.

I would have cried out had I been capable of speech. Instead I just made a moaning sound and drooled. I smelled burned hair and charred flesh and saw plumes of smoke rising from various parts of my dangerously overheated skin.

Bye-bye, endorphins. Hello, pain crashing into my system. From the bruises forming from being tackled, to the burning pain ripping through my side—my injuries were intense.

I took a shuddery breath and flailed as my muscles seized up in a grand finale. I hit the ground with a hard thud.

_Ooh floaty stars_ …

I blinked rapidly, until the spots had disappeared from my vision. I was completely winded.

The one bit of good luck was that I lay in a patch of sunlight. And maybe it could recharge me enough to be able to escape.

Zeus motioned for the Photokia nearest him to come over. The minion placed his foot on the middle of my chest and pressed down until I could feel that one more lean into me and his boot would smash through my body.

I bit my lip at the searing pain of my ribs spearing my torso. I was glad I couldn't remember the location of this planned overthrow, because any more pain and I'd have handed it over with a hand-drawn map.

My father loomed over me. "You can make this stop, you know. Just answer my question."

Ignoring my screaming neck muscles, I turned my head up to face Zeus.

Exhaustion and pain threatened to pull me under but I didn't think closing my eyes would be a good idea in this situation. I forced them open by digging my nails into my palms as hard as I could.

I jutted my chin out at Zeus, stubborn and silent. The stoic effect was only slightly lessened by the tears of pain streaming from my eyes. I squirmed against the Photokia's foot. No go.

_Click_. _Click_. Again with the damn pen. "Enough of this, child. Tell me the location."

The Gold Crusher slowly grinding me into the floor turned his head to say something to the minion beside him. He leaned back a bit as he did, letting up the pressure on me.

Now or never.

I hadn't been recharged much, but I had to try. Flinging myself hard to the side and knocking the Photokia off balance, I fired a puny ribbon of light out to shove him farther back so I could make my escape. Instead, I knocked Pop's pen out of his hand and sent it flying toward me.

I leapt up, my legs wobbly, and narrowly grabbed it. At least I wouldn't have to listen to anymore clicking.

Zeus took a step toward me, hand outstretched for the pen.

As I'd seen, even my highest power level didn't faze Zeus. So I had two options. One, I could meekly comply and see what happened, or two, go for the low tech choice.

Two it was. I jumped up and jabbed him in the thigh with the pen with all my might, then pulled it back out again with a resounding _click_ _click_ for added insult.

Zeus didn't make a sound. Merely noted the hole in the leg of his suit, rimmed with blue ink and blood. His expression hardened. Cold. Severe.

Pure terror was a great motivator for finding my last dregs of energy. As was the accompanying adrenaline rush that hit me.

I ran, my heart racing, desperate to make it back across the room to the door and a way out.

Zeus's hand closed on the back of my neck and I felt something clamp around my left wrist.

My body started to tingle. Not in a good way, either. More like my blood starting to heat up.

I stared down at the three inch, black metal cuff on me embossed with the letters "FeE," then glowered at my father, struggling to summon any power at all.

Zeus squatted down to my level and wound a thick chain attached to the cuff around my upper body. I gasped and arched back as every nerve I had went into screaming overdrive.

Pops smiled serenely. "Hurts like a bitch, doesn't it?"

My fingers white-knuckled the pen. Man, did I want to stab him again. Repeatedly.

Tears streamed down my face. My head throbbed and my entire body strained against the sensation of being caught in a vice. With needles attached for extra probey pain. "What … ?" It was all I could manage to say.

Zeus held the other end of the chain up in his hand, a matching wrist cuff for my right arm swinging from its final link. He gazed at it, almost dreamily. "It's really a thing of beauty. This binding both calls up your power and prevents it from going anywhere. There is nothing you can do to stop it. And since you can't use your power, it's not like you can blast the manacles off and free yourself. There you are, stuck with an ever-increasing pressure with no release."

He stroked the right wrist cuff, with a long, index finger. "It's calibrated perfectly so that eventually you'll die, but not too soon. Most go mad way before then." Head tilted, he cast a critical gaze over me. "You will for sure."

How comforting.

I ground my teeth together.

"You might want to take a deep breath," Zeus said and manacled my other wrist.

My eyes bugged out. It felt like my power was trying to rip through my skin. By chewing its way out.

"Relax," Zeus said, "it'll settle down in a minute." He leaned down and stroked my hair with his enormous hand in a surprisingly gentle gesture. "Don't struggle. It'll just be worse."

Total psycho! I jerked out from under his touch.

He was right about the pain though. It did settle. From unbelievably unbearable to barely-keeping-conscious tolerable, which was worse. Had it stayed at its initial level, I would have blacked out and been put out of my misery. But, as that wouldn't have been as fun for my father, awake and in excruciating agony it was.

I refused to die like this. Not that I'd planned my demise, but it would have involved being much, much older. Having saved the world. Had sex. Stuff like that.

I shook my head in a couple of sharp jolts, trying to stop the itchy squeezing of my brain. If I could just Velveeta it out through my ears, I'd be okay.

"All good now?" he asked. He picked me up like a trussed turkey and we blinked out of the room.

No. Not good at all.

**A/N: Ta dah! Your much awaited final chapter! Absolute Zammie in the next chapter – or was it the one after that? :P Please review!**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

**CHAPTER THREE**

We landed in the middle of nowhere, in a desert. At night. The only manmade item was a large portable trailer with no windows and a heavy steel door about fifty feet away.

With the manacles making my head buzz and vision warp, the sculpted rock formations and the occasional spiky, twisty Joshua Tree gave the world an eerie lunar-like feel. The effect was heightened by the insanely bright star show above.

I felt unhinged, like I was losing all sense of myself. But the one thing that did manage to penetrate the fog of my intolerable pain was the fact that _both_ a Photokia and a Pyrosim, one of Hades' minions, guarded the trailer.

I called the Pyrosim "Infernorators." They were wraiths who always reminded me of Munch's figure in "The Scream" set on fire. The screamer would have to start flying and stretch out his arms impossibly to shoot fireballs to complete the comparison so maybe the resemblance wasn't spot on, but when faced with weirdness, human nature tried to make sense of it.

But why was he here at all? The Gold Crushers and Infernorators hated each other so this made zero sense. Figuring it out was beyond me because my entire world had shrunk to sharp, knife-edged fragments.

Zeus dragged me roughly forward toward the trailer, my bare feet scraping over brush and small rocks. My skin stung from dozens of tiny cuts.

Good thing he held me up, because I was having trouble getting my legs to function. My lower half felt like Jell-O.

He snorted in derision. "You really are weak. One night should be enough to break you. Allow the memories to return. If not, well, I _will_ kill you for destroying my suit."

"That hasn't been decided yet," I heard Hades say. "I think I should do the honors."

I willed my muscles to work enough to raise my head and look at him. Last time I'd seen Hades, he'd been choking from poison. He was back to his massive, alcoholic, bloated self now, the white in his hair more pronounced. Even so, he still exuded a ton of charisma. It was plain wrong.

WTF? Why were these two (im)mortal enemies fighting over who got to kill me?

I watched in pain-induced shock as Zeus backhanded Hades without breaking stride.

Hades' seething hatred emanated from him like a furnace.

My body began to spasm.

Zeus dropped me in distaste.

I could feel their eyes on me, neither bothering to help as I clawed at my throat to try and get air into it, my limbs flailing painfully against the hard ground.

"Great," Hades muttered. "She's going to die before she reveals it. She's the only one that knows the location. You always break them too soon. But then," he said slyly, "'too soon' is a reoccurring problem of yours, isn't it?"

A thud and a grunt followed that.

Pops picked me up. I recognized his citrus cologne. I was bent double, the agony curling my body into itself.

"We'll get it from her in the morning." Zeus turned, dragging me with him. "Lower the wards."

And without so much as a "nice knowing you," he tossed me away like a frisbee.

I barely had time to glimpse the door being opened before I flew inside the trailer and landed with a thunk. My body was crumpled and the sharp, spiking pain in my shoulder blade made me wonder if I'd fractured it.

I heard Zeus' and Hades' continued arguing fade away and the thud of the door being shut. I didn't care. I wanted to bash my brains out and end my misery. Struggling, I raised my head and brought it down with a sharp smack on the vinyl flooring.

Bruised but not broken. I raised my hands, squinted at them through puffy eyes, and wondered if I could thwack the heavy cuffs against my head hard enough to stop the pain.

That's when I caught sight of a small lock on the inside of one of the cuffs.

I probably would have been a bit more excited at this splinter of hope if my freaking eyes hadn't started to bleed. It did not feel like the warm wash of tears. More like my insides had decided to flee my body by any means necessary and my blood was making a break for it through my tear ducts.

I dashed them away with the back of one manacled hand, almost blinding myself with Zeus' pen which I still held in a death grip.

Hang on. I could use that.

I had to take a time out to twitch uncontrollably as my skin began to pulse, kind of how I imagined the ground did before a geyser gushed up out of it.

Despite my agony, I willed myself to lift my hand up and smash the pen onto the ground.

It snapped.

I groped around amidst the plastic fragments. This was complicated by giant black spots swimming through my vision as the pressure in my head mounted. Blood continued to stream down my cheeks and my organs felt a little jumpy.

Sharp metal pricked my finger. Pathetically grateful for small miracles, I snatched up the tiny metal spring that powered the damn clicking of the pen.

Holding it in my right hand, I turned my left wrist over, facing up. My arm shook so hard that I had to slowly crawl over to the wall and lean against it, trapping my left arm in place to keep it still enough to work on.

I couldn't see anything, my body was slick with sweat, and my right arm trembled madly, but I had never been so determined to master a fine motor skill. I had to pick this lock or I was dead.

I sent up a prayer of thanks to Preston for having taught me how to both jimmy and pick locks so I could pull a prank on queen bee Tina Walters the night of the Halloween school dance. A prank that had ultimately led me to Zach, his kiss, and this entire crazy mess.

Sweat joined the blood streaming down my cheeks. My bottom lip had gone numb from me biting it so hard.

But what felt like an eternity and some of the most creative cursing I'd ever uttered later, my left cuff fell to the stone floor with a dull thunk.

It was the greatest sound I'd ever heard.

My eyes stopped bleeding, my skin stopped boiling, and the pain went down from "kill me now" to "kill me in about a half hour."

But each breath still felt like inhaling a lungful of hot, broken glass.

Getting the right cuff off was a lot trickier since I was practically useless doing stuff with my left hand. Having clear vision again and insides that didn't feel like they might liquify helped.

Finally, blessedly, I got free.

I ripped the chain from around my body and tossed it deeper into the room, then sprawled limp in a jelly fish imitation on the ground.

The pain was gone. Let me rephrase. The manacle pain was gone. My body still felt like it had done a tango with a freight train. Every inch of me hurt.

I couldn't move. Couldn't do anything except will my body to return to its normal functioning.

_Inhale_ … _Exhale_ … I calmed my racing heart down to a slow gallop, eyes fixed on the perforated ceiling tiles and florescent lights favored by soulless institutions everywhere.

All this pain that Zeus had rained down on me. I wondered if he'd have hurt Persephone as easily. I doubted it, given the way he'd spoken so glowingly about her, even knowing that she'd been planning to instigate a coup.

I wearily rubbed a hand over my eyes. There were a lot of important reasons for me to get Persephone's memories back. But maybe, if I was being honest, my biggest one was to know what it had felt like to be that loved. Instead of being killed without a second thought, the way Zeus was behaving with me now.

For someone who was such an absence in so many ways, Persephone's presence was impossible to ignore.

Though I'd have rather died than admit any of this.

I rolled onto my side and pushed up with both hands to swing myself into a seated position. Gingerly, I massaged my limbs, my breath hitching at the pins and needles screaming to life in my hands and feet.

A large table blocked my view of the rest of the room. I used its metal legs to pull myself up to standing so I could get a sense of where I was, then flinched, jerking my hands off it when I realized the table was made of cold steel. The kind used for autopsies.

The table had been designed for beings that were at least fifteen feet tall. So on the plus side, it was roomy. On the minus side, it recalled pointy things that could cut me open.

No way was I going to to let Zeus slice into me. I glanced out at the rest of the room to see if there was anything useful.

My heart sank.

Other than the table, the only other item in the room was a nightmare of a machine.

About ten feet tall and three feet wide, made of black iron, it had "FeE" embossed on its frame, just like the manacles. The frame held a wide vertical board, about seven feet high. Also attached to it were all manner of hooks, blades, saws, lightning rods, and miscellaneous scary things.

My imagination ran riot with all the ways Zeus would have that monstrosity deliver pain in the morning. Didn't matter. I couldn't let Zeus get that location from me.

Ignoring the dread in the pit of my belly, I forced myself to creep toward the torture device to examine it for something that could get me out of here. Something to get me through the wards and past the guards.

I came around the front of the machine and screamed.

I wasn't alone.

Strapped to the board, manacled, and totally unconscious, was Zach.

As much as I wanted painful payback for his having betrayed me and left me to die, I wouldn't have wished being manacled on Hades and Zeus themselves. Not to mention whatever they'd done to him with this torture device. I had to uncuff him.

His arms lay limp at his side, the chain connecting the cuffs pulled tight across his muscled torso. Thick metal bands secured over top of the manacles, held him across his upper body and hips. I'd have to get him down to pick the locks.

I took a step closer, scared of what state he'd be in. Pain? Probably. Madness? Maybe. "Zach?" Nervously, I pressed two fingers to his throat. His pulse was faint but at least he had one. His eyes fluttered open for a second, then fell heavily shut.

I peered at the machine and luckily found a release lever pretty quickly. I wedged my body up against Zach's and pressed the lever with my foot. As I suspected, the bands holding him snapped open and had I not been there, Zach would have crashed to the ground.

Sadly, I wasn't the strongest at the moment and while I managed to mostly cushion his fall, my left hip smashed hard into the floor.

Several swears later, I'd managed to prop him against a wall so that I could pick the locks on his manacles. His eyes were still closed. His breathing unsteady.

I took his right wrist in my hand, again feeling his pulse. Stronger, but thready. I'm sure it was residual fatigue and not anxiety that caused my hand to shake as I inserted the tiny metal spring in the lock of the cuff and began to work on it.

"You stupid bastard," I muttered. "Going after Hades." I wanted to be angry seeing him like this, watching his shallow breathing, rather than let myself feel the fear and concern that gnawed at the edges of my consciousness.

His left hand closed over my forearm with the tiniest tremor. Zach stroked my skin with his index finger. He sighed. "So pretty." Zach's voice came out like pure raspy honey—you know, like when you're still coming to from a dream.

I fumbled the lock as a tiny pang of happy shot to my heart. "You're delirious." He had to be, because there was no way in his right mind he'd compliment me like that. That was far too sweet.

I moved his left hand away to get a better angle. After a moment, his right cuff popped open.

Zach's arm thudded uselessly to the ground.

How long had he been like this?

I repositioned myself so I sat cross-legged and bent over the lock on his left cuff.

Zach's right hand reached up to gently tangle in my hair and pull on one of my somewhat matted black ringlets.

I couldn't help myself. I leaned into his hand. Let him stroke my jaw with his blistered fingers. Closed my eyes as he gently traced my eyelashes.

I felt my entire body come alive and push my pain aside in a giant sigh of bliss.

This wasn't the time for indulging in fantasy or our insane attraction. We had to get out of here and nothing had changed between us. I grasped his hand and placed it down by his side.

Once his left cuff finally came off, I tugged him forward so I could yank his body free from the chain wrapped around his torso. I had to grapple with his dead weight to keep him from falling over. Hot fury at what they'd done to him flushed my skin. My light danced weakly out of my palms, desperate to blast things at the unfairness of it all but I had to conserve what little I had for our escape.

As soon as Zach was free, I threw the entire manacle contraption across the room, where it smashed against the wall with an angry clang. Zach slid back against the wall.

"Oi!" I held my breath as our Gold Crusher guard pounded on the outside of the door. Loudly bitching about crap job postings, he stomped away.

Big sigh of relief. I was alive. That was a plus. And there were two of us, which would increase our chances of getting out of here. That's all I could let myself focus on. Rage, sorrow, the state of the relationships I had with various males—all had to wait. I shoved my emotions down deep inside me.

Survival trumped teen drama.

I glanced down to find Zach gazing up at me. Not talking, just taking me in.

I refused to squirm and stared back determined. My mouth was oddly dry. I swallowed a few times and refused to look away. _Knock yourself out_. I hadn't survived everything to this point to be undone by his charms.

Upon closer examination, Zach's usual hotness seemed tempered by exhaustion. Dark circles marred the skin under his rich green eyes that reminded me of emeralds. His stubble was fuller and his dark hair had grown out slightly, the tips curling just past his ears. The tiny silver scar which he'd gotten courtesy of Persephone when he'd abducted her seemed more pronounced against the streaks of dirt and dried blood on his face. His lips were cracked and swollen.

Too bad none of it lessened my attraction.

He smiled dopily at me and I leaned in, realizing that his eyes were glazed. The manacles may have come off, but Zach still rocked a massive after-shock.

I flashed back to the last time I'd seen him. In all his true eighteen-foot-god glory, there'd been a moment right before he abandoned me, when he'd sent me this look of incredible tenderness. I'd never been sure if I'd really seen that look or just wished I had.

Back in his earth form and six-feet-tall, Zach looked at me the same way now. Somehow, it made him look vulnerable. He tugged on his battered black shirt. In anyone else, I would have sworn it was a nervous gesture. I could see how the chains had shredded the fabric, leaving his skin beneath it red and raw. His eyes dipped away briefly before returning to my face.

Slowly, he drew his denim-clad legs up to his chest, to prop himself upright. His hard thighs visible through the many tears in in his jeans were of no interest to me. I looked at them twice just to make sure. Just to take my mind off the bloodstains and bruising, I told myself.

My fingers twitched, wanting to reach for him. I crossed my arms, and stuffed my hands into my armpits.

Zach's brow furrowed. He blinked slowly with those ridiculously fringed lashes then reached out to take my hand. His skin was rough but his touch feather gentle.

Goosebumps broke out all over my body.

Zach leaned in to me and nuzzled his face into my neck. His arms circled me and he held me tight, inhaling my scent and cradling me like I was the most precious thing in the world.

Either Zach had a severe head injury or he'd been possessed, because he was never tender like this.

I gritted my teeth. He made it very hard to hate him.

I couldn't shake the thought that this was another of his famous mind-games. That he had faked being out of it from the start. However, I still wanted answers. Maybe a warm, pliant Zach would be a talkative Zach. And if he shut up fast, then I'd know he was just playing me.

I wasn't above exploiting the situation to find out.

And that's all this was—a fact-finding mission. "Zach," I murmured.

His hold on me tightened.

I felt so warm and safe. Facts. I was here for facts.

"Tell me why you took Preston's chain." The chain that had been forged so Zeus could bind Prometheus to a rock and have an eagle eat his liver as punishment for giving mankind fire. Since Prometheus no longer had any power in his human form, it was his only weapon. "You stole it. Knowing it was all Preston had, just so you could what? Go after Hades in his poisoned state?"

"Had to," he rumbled, his voice scratchy, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time. It was growly and sexy and his slightly foreign accent was the tiniest bit more pronounced. For some reason it made me think of rumpled beds.

No! Not beds. Bad, nasty things like uh—

Zach nipped on the hollow of the left side of my neck which remained my Kryptonite. Every nerve flared to life screaming "more" as lust ripped through me and my mind went blank.

I placed my hands on his chest and tried to shove him back. Get some breathing space. Oxygen was exceedingly elusive right now.

In response he nipped me again.

Had Zach come with a medicine label it would have read: take sparingly. Side effects may include: full body tingling, inability to catch a breath due to tightening ribs, and wonkyheadedness.

"Focus, Kyrillos," I ordered sternly. Or at least muttered weakly before letting out something embarrassing close to a moan as he licked the spot he had nipped.

Yeah, definitely a moan. It only fired him up hotter.

I couldn't let him touch me. Was not going to let him fondle his way into forgiveness.

Answers. Now. I had to get back in control of this situation. I'd turn the tables.

I held his arms in place at his sides and nuzzled his jaw. "The chain, Zach. What happened?" The skin under my lips felt bristly and tasted salty and I sort of forgot this was supposed to be an assault tactic as I fell into the spiciness of him.

"Chose you, Goddess," he mumbled. He groaned and tumbled us to the floor.

"I know," I tensed under him. "You wouldn't ever let Hades hurt Persephone."

Seriously, I so did not want to be reminded of her right now.

"You." He was starting to slur.

I ignored the tinge of guilt I felt knowing that he really hadn't come to his senses properly. Was still in a stupor and would never have been answering me otherwise. "Yes. Me. I am Persephone. But I'm Cammie. Do you get that?" I bent a knee and placed my bare foot against the cool floor, the better to support his hot, heavy weight.

Zach suckled the skin above my collarbone.

My last iota of reason jumped up and down in my brain reminding me of my real purpose. The rest of me tried to beat it into getting with the pleasure program, but he was a determined little bugger.

Zach's head dropped against my chest.

I dragged my foot along his leg, sliding it against his toes. I gave him a prod.

"Hades poisoned _himself_," he got out thickly, rolling off me.

I sat up abruptly, hot anger flooding my system. "That bastard! He framed me." But why? Any way I looked at it, I came up blank.

I shook my head. "It doesn't make sense. If he wanted me out of the way, he'd have killed me. Not frame me."

Zach raised himself enough to lean over me, staring into my eyes. His expression stayed partially glazed and dazed, evidenced by his blinks that were becoming slower and slower.

I cupped his chin in my hands. "Stay with me here, bad boy." I needed to understand.

"Test." _Blink_.

"For …" I prompted.

"My loyalty." He paused and I waited, unsure if there was more. "You … or him." Very slow blink.

"But if you went after him then that meant …"

His gaze softened and he started to sway. "Chose. You."

I laid him on the ground in case he fainted and considered what he'd said. It was sweet, I guess. "You chose Persephone again."

"Chose Cammie," he mumbled. His lids fell shut.

Holy. Bex.

I scrambled to my feet and began to pace.

That was … wow … he chose me. _Me_. Then again, especially since his little revenge trip had failed, he still needed me to defeat Hades.

I stopped pacing and stood over his body, staring down at him with a frown. Perhaps "chose" was a little vague. Somewhat undefined.

I squatted down next to him, watching the rise and fall of his chest.

What verb would he have used with Persephone? _Want_? _Desperately need to kiss_? Those would have been perfectly fine verb choices for me, too.

_Love_? I didn't want that. Zach and love were a dangerous, potentially lethal combo. But there it was. The specter of her once again.

I was stuck in a not-love triangle with myself.

I was a means to an end and not the end itself. I wanted to open my mouth to ask _why_ he chose me but I couldn't make my lips move. I could single-handedly take on the minions of the Underworld and Olympus, but I didn't have the guts to ask the boy I crushed on a simple question.

Zach stirred fitfully. "Never again," he rasped.

"While I'd like to believe that of a whole bunch of situations, for now, you gotta wake up and help us get out of here," I said, slapping his cheeks with my hand, hoping he'd come to.

I may have slapped him a bit too hard, because his eyes snapped open and he snatched my hand in mid-air before it could land on his cheek again.

His eyes narrowed. "Tell me I'm hallucinating." His voice was low and still rough, but lucid.

Yippy. Totally back to normal.

I yanked my hand free. "I can see how you think that sounds like 'Thank you, Cammie, for freeing me with your fine lock-picking skills,' but really, it's nowhere close."

"You freed me?" Could he sound more incredulous? Doubtful.

I shrugged modestly. I was so going to enjoy Zach thanking me.

Zach pushed to his feet with a rustle and only the tiniest sway. If I hadn't been watching him closely, I wouldn't have seen any sign of weakness. He peered closely at my face. "Blood?"

I raised a finger to touch the tracks of dried blood along my cheeks.

He cast a suspicious glance behind me then stormed over to the two sets of manacles, hauling me along for the ride.

He kicked at one of the sets before turning an accusing glower on me. "You were cuffed?"

I shivered at the menace in his voice. Zach was barely civilized at the best of times, but right now the expression on his face made me think he'd fallen a few rungs lower.

Not that it scared me. I poked him in the chest, hard. "Not willingly, idiot. I was an exalted guest of Zeus' for a few days."

I waited for his snarky comment about how stupid I'd been to let myself get captured.

It never came. His jaw tensed. "Did he hurt you?"

I crossed my arms. "Wow, Zach. I could almost believe you care. The saying must be true. Absence _does_ make the traitorous manbag's heart grow fonder."

His eyes went flat black, the way they did when he got angry.

My heart sped up. Sadly, not in fear.

"Are you accusing me of something?" he asked.

Was he kidding? Anger and adrenaline from everything I'd experienced hit me like a freight train. "You're a jerk."

Mr. Broody didn't like that. He prowled toward me, forcing me backwards.

I scooted back, ignoring the pain on the cut up soles of my feet, until eventually my spine hit the wall. I spread out my arms and legs, attempting to create a large bubble of personal space that even he would get the point to stay clear of.

He knocked my right leg aside and got in close.

I willed my body to stay relaxed.

The picture of indifference.

"Think carefully about insulting me." He leaned forward.

My choices were press myself back further into the wall or let his body cover me.

Ooh, actually, I had a third option.

I called up whatever tiny amount of power had managed to recharge. It was enough for one weak vine to snake out. I wrapped it around his waist and flung him clumsily against the metal table with a satisfying thunk.

The dummy gave a low laugh as he rubbed his hip. "Foreplay? Better give me a sec to recuperate."

That was it. I would have attacked him again but my power gage had hit empty. I lunged across the space to pummel him. "You think it's funny?"

Zach winced and I felt a spasm of guilt about hitting a guy who was already so battered. But he only allowed me about a punch and a half before my hands were grasped in a steel grip and my body arched backwards against the table. "What is your problem? And keep your bitching down to a murmur. We don't want to attract attention."

I lowered my voice. "While you may not have truly betrayed me since—I guess—you were rectifying the poisoning situation—"

Zach's brow creased in confusion. "How do you know that?"

The fact he didn't remember being all sweet and honest with me minutes before made me even angrier. "You still abandoned me." I yanked myself free and shoved him away from me.

"What?" He did sound rather surprised. His face was all scrunched up in confusion. "I was coming back."

I glowered at him. "To gloat on my grave? Which wouldn't have existed because there wouldn't have been any of me left to bury. Last time we saw each other, you left me to die in a rapidly unraveling alternate reality forged by an insane dragon."

Zach reached for my throat and I tensed, thinking he wanted to choke me but all he did was angrily grab my sapphire pendant and hold it up for me to see. "And you didn't use this because … ?"

I stared at him blankly.

Zach blinked, incredulous. "You don't remember that either? Preston didn't tell you?"

I snatched the pendant away. "I'm sure had Preston known to tell me something, he would have. His life was on the line, too."

"Then I was the only other person who knew?" He roughly ran his fingers through his hair. "You're gonna be the death of me."

I leaned in, letting him see my resentful anger. "Yeah, in about five seconds."

That only made the infuriating boy smirk. He hooked a finger into the necklace and tugged me close.

I went, shuffling forward. But only because I didn't want my chain broken.

"Cammie," he purred, "this little baby isn't just a pretty trinket. You can transport via trees. If you'd touched one of the laurel trees there and thought of Gallagher Academy, it would have brought you through to a tree on your school's property. I figured that's why you lifted it." He released the pendant and the sapphire thunked against my chest.

"It was a gift from my mom," I mumbled.

I bowed my head and traced the cool edges of the table with my fingertip, following the path until I'd walked around to the other side. I gripped the lip of the table, needing something solid between the two of us, something to ground me since having my understanding of reality thrown for a loop had severely disoriented me.

My righteous indignation had been knocked out of me in one fell swoop. I didn't like the feeling. This whole time I'd thought he'd betrayed me and left me for dead. When all he'd really been guilty of was taking Preston's chain.

My mind reeled. If only he'd just trusted me with all of this in the first place. But no. He wouldn't have. Even _my_ limited exposure to gods clued me in to that. Backstabbing, manipulation, and destruction, bring it. Trust, friendship, and communication, not familiar with those concepts.

A little late, but he was trusting me now.

That was something. A pretty big something.

Unless he was just playing me. Argh!

I was so busy avoiding Zach's gaze that he managed to get the drop on me. He brushed his lips against my ears. I swear he made my cartilage flutter. "Stop over thinking me, Goddess. You're gonna make your head explode."

"Don't flatter yourself." My voice sounded impressively cool given the millions of champagne bubble sensations tingling through my body.

Amazing.

From annoyed to aroused and back to deeply annoyed again in minutes. Zach was an emotional roller coaster and I was the idiot on the all-day pass.

Zach arched his neck and shoulders as if easing the stiffness in them. He really had nice shoulders. "So whatcha in for?" he asked in a 1930's gangster voice.

"Zeus wanted the location of the ritual you were planning. Do you know it?""

Zach swore. "No. But that's top of the list after getting out of here."

"Preaching to the choir, buddy. When is it supposed to go down?"

"Spring equinox." At my look of total incomprehension, he explained. "It's the balance of light, above, and shadow, below. So for you and me? Olympus and Underworld? Off the charts power surge. We'll be able to seize control of the minions."

His right shoulder cracked as he stretched it back. "See, a few other gods openly sided with Hades or Zeus, but most couldn't bother to get involved. Nothing in it for them. So really, the only soldiers fighting on Earth, fighting this war at all, are the Photokia and Pyrosim. When we combine our power through this ritual and make the minions ours, Zeus and Hades no longer have armies. Earth is safe." His eyes glittered. "And if we turn that unending supply of fighters on our fathers? Even those gods can't battle them forever. Eventually Zeus and Hades will weaken, and Olympus and the Underworld will be ours."

I didn't want Olympus. I just wanted Earth to be left alone. That was a discussion for another time, though.

"Our 'have sex, save the world' plan is gonna require some pretty amazing foreplay to overcome the stress of facing them." I was only partly joking.

Zach rolled onto the outsides of his feet, shoving his hands into his pockets. "About that."

I eyed him, highly suspicious.

His lips twisted wryly. "The ritual is us declaring our love. Not having sex."

My reaction was a bit tri-polar.

Relief that we didn't have to have sex to save the world.

Disappointment that we didn't have to have sex to save the world.

And a massive WTF! that we had to fall in love to save the world.

My mouth actually fell open in stunned shock."You lied to me?"

"Hey, sex was _your_ assumption," he said. "My words were 'two become one.'"

He had the audacity to look superior.

I shoved him, making him stumble sideways. "That's me pushing you off your moral high ground, asshat." I began to pace.

The enormity of this hit me like a sledgehammer to the head. My temples pounded. "No, no, no. It's one thing to have sex. Fleas have sex." I was gesturing madly in agitation by this point. "Love is supposed to involve choice. You can't force people to fall in love and then _hinge saving the world on it_. Who does that?"

Zach eased himself up onto the table, his legs dangling. "So choose to do it." He sounded frustrated.

What part of this didn't he understand? "It's not that simple. There's no blueprint for falling in love. Sex, well, it's a physical process." I bounced on my toes, distraught. "Love is an emotional one. You can't force emotions."

Zach gave me a half-grin. "You get mad at me all the time."

"Well, yes. But love? That's … everything. I was willing to lose my virginity for this. Take one for the team."

"Gee, thanks." Zach leaned back onto his elbows.

"But love? It's impossible." I could deal with sex. That just involved performance anxiety, not the potential having my heart broken into a million sharp shards.

I wrapped my arms around myself because I had suddenly gotten very cold. With my accelerated healing skills, my body was actually feeling a bit better, but my emotional well-being was going through the wringer big time.

"How are you and I ever going to fall in love, Zach? And why would you even want to? You don't even like me."

His eyes flicked to the torture machine. Went soft and sad. His voice was quiet as he said, "Sometimes you gotta go into the dark to find the light."

I didn't understand him, but I also didn't want him retreating into his head, dwelling on whatever horrible acts had gone down. "Zach."

He shook his head and sat up sharply. "Despite you thinking I'm a complete asshole, Hades is worse. So is Zeus. And if that means you and I need to suck it up for the greater good, then guess what? That's what we're gonna do."

That's honesty for you. I scraped my toe over a tiny scratch on the floor. Eyes fixated on the motion. "So romantic."

"No. It's not." He jumped off the table and clasped my chin in his fingers, just tight enough to force me to look at him. "I'm praying Zeus didn't show you what he's really capable of. Because the manacles? A fun afternoon out. Hades is just as bad."

He paused and released me. "And I do like you."

I scowled. Both because I didn't want someone loving me to be a duty _and_ because he was right. "Okay. Sucking it up. Lives are on the line. We have to try and take whatever's between us and turn it into something more. But why didn't you just tell me this from the start? Why lie—"

He opened his mouth to protest and I held up a hand to cut him off. "By omission if nothing else. And then try to take on Hades yourself, knowing that this," I gestured angrily at the torture machine, "was a possibility?"

He glanced away. I could practically hear the wheels in his brain spinning as he spun another lie.

I shook my head emphatically. "No way. For us to have any chance, there needs to be trust. Be honest with me here."

"Honest?" His voice hardened. "Did it ever occur to you, even once, to see this from my perspective?" His face twisted with pain. "What it was like for me? When Persephone died? Or disappeared or whatever the hell you did, leaving me without you?" He smacked the table so hard it sounded like a gunshot. His eyes glittered more with anguish than anger.

I flinched in reaction. I opened my mouth, but no smart retort came out. Because it hit me that I never had. Not once. I raised bleak eyes to him.

Zach watched my shoulders slump and laughed bitterly. "No, of course not."

"I can't remember," I protested. Even to me it sounded weak.

Zach's expression turned grim. "But you never even bothered to try and imagine it."

He was right. I hadn't. So I did.

What must it have felt like to suddenly lose the greatest love of your life with no concrete explanation of what had happened to her? To have lived, wondering if she was really dead, or just gone all those years, only to find her again and realize she had no idea who you were.

That in fact, she wasn't even herself anymore. But she was.

My chest felt empty. Even from what little I knew about their relationship, I imagined that had it happened to me, I would have felt like my soul had been ripped out.

Dully, I felt all our previous encounters fall into a new kind of clarity. I gnawed on my lower lip, uneasy. "It was never about mind games with me, was it? The attraction, the pushing away."

Zach didn't agree, but he didn't refute it, either.

"It was because you'd been hurt." I stroked his arm. He tensed under my touch. "I'm sorry."

"There you were," he said, his voice hollow, his gaze focused slightly past me, "insisting you were both. Cammie and Persephone. That I had to accept you as both. But where was a little bit of freaking understanding that maybe you saying you were Persephone wasn't enough? That it wasn't easy to accept you as her, on your say-so. That even being around you was _so_ hard."

He closed his eyes in resignation. "I tried to go after Hades a different way, didn't come clean about the ritual, because I didn't want to have to love you."

_Because you weren't her_ … I bit my lip.

"I'm sorry. There was no good way to say that." He stared at me intently, then brushed a lock of hair out of my face. "What are you thinking?"

I threw up my hands, then gave a mocking laugh and mimed putting a gun to my head and pulling the trigger. "_Pow_."

Zach smiled. "Guess that's a start."

I wasn't about to share that the thought trumpeting around in my brain was that when I did get Persephone's memories back, did learn what it felt like to be that loved, how was that going to make _me_, Cammie, feel when it came to Zach? It was one thing to intellectually know about their grand passion, but feeling it? Remembering it?

If Zach and I fell in love, I'd forever be making comparisons between Zach having loved Persephone because he wanted to and loving me because he had to.

A heavy weight settled in my chest. Almost like sorrow or loss. But that was crazy, right? Because I didn't even want Zach to love me. It was a high school crush. I wanted him out of my system.

Zach held out a hand. "No more games between us. No more betrayals. Deal?"

I eyed it for a second before taking it, feeling the warmth of his grasp. "Deal." My hand remained in his, both of us staring at each other. I sighed. "This isn't going to be easy."

Zach laughed, the first genuinely amused chuckle I'd heard from him here in the trailer. "Sweetheart, that's the understatement of the century."

**A/N: Don't you just hate Cammie for misunderstanding what Zach said? And don't you just love the Zammie! **** If you loved the promised Zammie, please review!**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Zach cocked his head at the door. "What's the situation out there?"

"Far as I know? Heavy wards. Two guards. A Photokia and a Pyrosim."

"Together?" He sounded incredulous.

"I guess Hades and Zeus decided hating us trumps hating each other. There's some level of playing nicely going on now. Any ideas?"

He nodded. "I have a plan. But I need eyes on the minions. Which means blasting the door open. It's the frame, not the door itself that's warded," he explained. "Give it a go."

I gave it my best shot. Sadly, using my vine on Zach had left me tapped. I couldn't call up any light beyond a dim glow on one palm. The door didn't budge.

"Guess I'm up." Zach's body tensed, his jaw tightened and he took a sharp breath before silently sending a blast of his sharply pointed black light toward the door. If pointed light wasn't scary enough, it gave the impression of deadly things wriggling in its depth. Every landed strike resulted in toxic ashy obliteration.

I jumped out of the way of the deadly dust falling to the ground.

Zach's show of power was impressive, as always, but his tension only seemed to confirm that the Prince of Darkness was not yet right as rain.

I hoped he could fake it because the door was gone. I registered the exact second that our captors realized we were free of our manacles and tensed to do something about it.

Zach sprang into action.

Okay, not so much sprang as stared.

The minions slowed to a dazed stroll, eyes downcast, a deep sigh shuddering through them.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, coming to stand beside him.

Looking utterly inconsolable, the Infernorator and the Gold Crusher headed directly for the warded up entrance. And us.

I tensed.

"Don't worry,' Zach chuckled, "I'm just helping them realize that their miserable lives are not worth living." A self-satisfied grin spread across his face as our guards hit the ward one after the other and fried into oblivion.

Cool. "How did you guide them into offing themselves like that?

He smiled humorlessly. "Hades' son, remember? I have a gift for death."

"You don't use it, though. I mean, you could have. I'm sure you wanted to turn it on me a few times."

"Five or ten," he agreed.

"But?"

"Takes a lot of energy. And I can't use it on more than a couple of beings at a time."

I didn't buy it and I guess that showed because his voice constricted. "It would make Hades proud." He looked away from me, ending the conversation. "Give me a sec." He bent over, hands on his thighs.

I could hear his breathing, heavier than usual. This didn't bode well. "You okay?"

He brushed off my concern with a dismissive wave. A moment later he straightened. "Let's roll. Get Persephone's memories and get the location."

"Then we ward it." I bounced on my toes excitedly. "The location. Preston is a warding whiz kid. We ward it up so it can't be destroyed before the equinox."

"Good idea."

I glanced outside. The difference in the darkness was faint, but dead of night had tipped over into pre-dawn. Which meant Zeus could return at any time.

I grabbed Zach's upper arm, panicked at the thought.

And maybe because it was important to objectively check that my best hope out of here was in fine working condition. His muscles still filled out his ragged clothing quite nicely without being steroidly obnoxious, so three cheers for that.

Zach waited expectantly for me to say something.

I was still distracted by his biceps. "Um, what's the plan?"

Zach quickly strode over and retrieved a set of manacles. "I'm going to stretch the chain out as wide as it'll go. Lay them across as much of the entrance as possible."

He knelt down and busied himself spreading out his manacles on the ground just outside ward range. "These puppies both call power forth and absorb it. In theory, they should suck the ward in and contain it. Then we can step over them and get out."

Zach stood and brushed off his jeans then pushed me back a few steps. In a blur of motion, he kicked the manacle into the doorway.

White light flared. I blinked rapidly to clear my vision. "Did it work?"

"Sure." He leaned forward peering at it.

I crossed my arms, doubtful. "But you don't actually know. Here's a thought. Maybe you should have saved a minion to test it on."

"Yup," he replied with a grin, "that would have been smart." He stepped forward into the night.

I yelped then relaxed as he turned, totally unharmed. "You coming or what?"

"Since you asked so nicely," I muttered and followed him outside.

I took a deep breath. The dawn was cool and fresh. It felt amazing. "Why Earth?"

Zach laughed. "Compromise. Neither Zeus nor Hades would let the other be our host jailer."

I scanned the area. "Joshua Tree at four o'clock. Let's get back to Gallagher Academy."

"Right," he murmured, then he shoved me. "Run!"

The sky had filled with Photokia and Pyrosim. Our display had not gone unnoticed.

I froze. Zach shoved at me again with his right hand and began slashing at minions using his black light from his left. There was no sign that he was anything other than absolutely powerful.

I couldn't join in since I had no power to blast yet, but being outside, even in these early rays, I was slowly recharging. Zach wasn't getting out of here without me, and he definitely wasn't taking them on himself.

"You stay, I stay."

Zach muttered some choice words about my stubbornness, shot out a shield of black light to protect us and then almost tore my arm from its socket as he ran toward the tree, holding on to me tightly.

Infernorators thrust out their flaming tentacley arms to blast fireballs that quickly took root in the dry desert scrub. A rapidly blazing wall of flame sprang up, gaining on us. We had to make the tree before we were toasted.

Or before the Gold Crushers took it out with their strikes of lightning, as the Joshua tree was very obviously our destination.

My feet burned. My chest heaved with exertion, but we'd almost made it, mostly intact, when a wall of minions landed between us and the tree.

Zach sliced through most of them with the point of his black light, momentarily clearing a path. "Get out of here."

I shook my head. "Being outside is recharging me. I can feel it."

Zach's green eyes flashed as he spared me the briefest glare. Big deal. Like I hadn't seen _that_ annoyed look before.

I was prepared to fight him. And fight with him. My power was coming back. Not a lot, but enough to help.

What I didn't expect was Zach to press a single gentle kiss to my lips and murmur, "Trust me. I'll be there before you know it." Then he leapt us over the minions, whipped around to face them, and shoved me toward the tree with the admonishment to "Stay alive."

I stumbled, hands out, prepared to catch myself before I hit rough bark, but instead flew through the tree and straight out the other side.

I was back at Gallagher Academy the Exceptional School in the small town of Roseville in Washington, my index finger to my lip, pressed against the spot where Zach had kissed me.

I stared at the cypress that I had emerged through, but Zach didn't materialize.

I shivered. It was January. This was the States. And I was cold.

I sat back on my knees and took a moment to drink in the familiar scenery. My eyes landed on my school. What a relief to see it.

Another glance at the cypress. Continued lack of Zach. I pushed to my feet and brushed myself off.

My stomach clutched in anxiety. No. I couldn't think the worst. He was more than capable of taking care of himself and if I went back, I'd only get into trouble. The safest place for me right now was behind the wards at my school.

He wanted me here, so here I'd stay. I uttered a wish for his safe return and tried not to feel like a coward. Because truth be told, I didn't want to go back.

Didn't want to be in danger.

A tingling on my neck made me glance up. Sure enough, a couple of Gold Crushers and Infernorators were already hovering in the sky, just outside the invisible demarcation of my school's safety wards.

Let me rephrase. I didn't want to be in _immediate_ danger. Supernatural creatures loitering outside school grounds were nothing anymore. Funny what you could get used to.

Especially since my human classmates couldn't see them.

A fact I was hugely grateful for seconds later when I was rushed and enveloped in a giant Bex hug.

I was so pathetically glad to see my best friend that I almost burst into tears. Instead, I planted a smooch on her lips. "Baby, I'm home."

"How very Katy Perry of you, love."

The sound of a sexy British voice startled me out of my homecoming euphoria.

"Well, she isn't wearing cherry Chap stick. So there's that," I said, as I turned to scope out the pretty, pretty boy standing before me. With his blue eyes and sun-kissed, tousled hair, bulky defined muscles, he looked like he should have been a Greek God (excuse the irony), not standing in my school yard, dressed in a warm wool coat.

While this mouthy stranger was model material, I, on the other hand, looked like I belonged in a dumpster. I wanted to get to my room, shower in scalding water, and sleep for the two weeks of winter break that I figured were about to happen.

Give or take daylight savings time in Olympus.

Yeah, and get cracking on the memories. But damn, I was just so very tired from the emotional and physical minefields I'd waded through.

New dude grinned at me with this beautiful smile and I felt meltiness. Not like with Zach. I doubted anyone would be like Zach for me, but more in a "I'd have to be dead not to feel something" kind of way.

He was mushy happiness personified.

I turned toward Bex to check her reaction to him but was unable to see her expression because she'd placed her hands on my shoulders and was killing my warm fuzzy by shaking me into concussion city.

"Quit it." I pulled myself loose. "People go to prison for shaken Cammie syndrome."

"That's babies," she shot back, punching me on the shoulder, "which is exactly what you acted like, leaving school." She flipped her long, caramel hair out of her face to better send me a blue-eyed glower of death.

Then she noticed the blood on my face. Her glower ratcheted up a few notches.

Bex gave damn fine stare, and on most other people, the look combined with her five-foot-ten height would have them conceding whatever point she wanted. Years of proximity had made me immune.

I felt bad because she seemed really worried. Her "tell" being the calming, deep breaths she took under her winter coat.

Pretty boy had noticed too. He was pretty fixated on making sure her chest rose and fell okay. His concern was touching.

"It wasn't willingly. I had to, uh," I glanced at pretty boy, "visit with my dad. For maybe four days. You're acting like I was gone for—"

"Two months, Cammie Chameleon," Preston said, arriving at my side, looking comfortingly rumpled and spiky-haired. He draped me in my heavy winter coat. "We've been keeping watch for your return."

I staggered back a step. "Two months?" How long had Zeus been drugging me?

"Preston found out where you were," Bex said. "But we had no idea …" She swallowed hard. "We knew whatever going on with you was bad."

"I'm sorry." I felt terrible that my friends had gone through that worry. And even more upset that Zeus had stolen a chunk of my life away. Absently, I pulled the coat tighter around me, pondering payback.

"Cammie." I blinked back to attention. Bex had scrounged around in her pockets and located a small pack of wet wipes. She handed one to me so I could scrub my face. "You can't go inside like that."

Preston sighed. Even though I knew my other best friend was really Prometheus, currently stuck in human teen boy form, he always reminded me of an anime character brought to life. He pushed his black, fat-framed glasses back up his nose in a familiar gesture. "I'm tempted to let Duchess kill you."

Duchess being his nickname for Bex. Just as only Preston could call me Cammie Chameleon.

Bex frowned at me. "Do you know how many possible horrible scenarios I calculated in the time you were gone? Six hundred and thirty seven. And that was before I factored in—"

I drowned out her reasonings behind all the ways I could have bit it. All I could think about was Zach. Two months? For how much of it had Zach been clamped to the torture board? What kind of strength had it taken for him to resist the pain and the madness? To come back from being manacled?

And why hadn't he shown up yet?

I realized Bex had trailed off and everyone now stared at me.

"So how did you get out of Olympus?" Pretty boy asked.

I strode off, irritated, toward the school building. "No. No longer want to know who you are. You obviously have some connection to the Greeks and that's enough bad news for me."

"You wound me, Cammie Morgan," he said, keeping pace beside me.

"Stay back." I made the sign of the cross.

Pretty boy's eyes glinted with amusement. "That's vamps, love. Fictional creatures."

"Then pick the appropriate 'screw off' sign and stand down," I said.

Bex placed a hand on my arm. "I get that you're traumatized, but it's not his fault."

I sped up, not caring if my anger was misplaced. Every new Greek character I met just meant trouble. And I was exhausted.

"How _did_ you get out?" Preston echoed, hot on my heels.

"Zach."

Preston made a rude sound, but noticing that I looked very close to the edge of sanity, didn't push things.

"Bex found your disappearance rather off-putting," Pretty boy said. "You made her quite upset."

I squeezed her hand in genuine remorse. "Sorry."

Bex glanced at Pretty boy and blushed.

Huh? I took a closer look at her.

Under her open winter coat, I saw she had ditched her uniform of science pun T-shirt and jeans for, well, a cute purple cap-sleeve top and jeans, but still. This was huge. Who was this guy? I stopped walking. "Fine," I sighed. "I'll bite. Who are you?"

"Cammie, Grant. Grant, Cammie," Bex introduced.

Grant stuck out his hand. I shook it, but only because of the fond smile he'd given Bex when she spoke. Then I looked to Preston for further clarification.

"Eros," Preston said. "My 'cousin' who is staying here for a bit."

I shook my head. Not computing.

Preston sighed. "Cupid." He hated that I only seemed to know the "fake" Roman names of the Greek Gods. I often knew more than I let on, but he was so fun to taunt.

"No freaking way!" I exclaimed, once again striding briskly across the back lawn. And not just because I was still barefoot and now risking serious toe-loss. January in USA and all that.

Grant scowled at the "Cupid" name. "Back off, Winters," he warned.

"Hey, if I could burn the Roman names from her brain I would. She's Greek learning disabled."

And then it hit me. I stopped dead, causing Bex to almost plough into me. "Cupid! Arrows!" I turned to Grant. "Could you make me and Zach fall in love?" This could be the answer to all our prayers.

"Are you insane?" Preston rounded on me angrily.

I winced, knowing Preston was going to freak right out when I told him. "It's about the ritual." I paused, trying how best to say this.

"You don't have to be in love with Zach to have sex with him," Bex said, annoyed and totally forgetting Preston didn't know about the _ex-say_ and blurting it right out. She remembered a split second later when I glared at her and she clamped her hand over her mouth.

Too late.

"Sex?" he sputtered. "With Zach? That was your big plan as Persephone? A giant orgasm to Oxytocin the supreme gods into submission?"

"Actually," I snapped, "it was the lung cancer they'd get from the huge cigarette they'd want to smoke after. It was a long term game plan."

Preston glared at me. "I gave up my powers for the stupidest idea ever?"

"What?" Bex exclaimed.

I poked him in the chest. "Next time, coach, _you_ draw the play. Or hey, don't saddle your star Quarterback with a memory spell so she can't remember all the details."

"He. Was. Not. Supposed. To. Kiss. You." Preston ground out.

"Blah blah blah," I mocked back.

"Want me to smack them for you?" Grant asked.

"You're so sweet," Bex replied. "But not necessary." She gave us each a boff on the head.

I stuck my tongue out at Preston. He tried to grab it. "Bex!" I bleated.

"Much as I would love two best friends who aren't royal pains in the butt," Bex wagged a finger at us, parent-style, "I've trained you two, so stand down. Otherwise I'll have to set something awful on you." She blinked at Grant. "I bet you know some terrible creatures, don't you?" she asked, all breathless with delight.

"Nightmare variety," he boasted.

Bex beamed and leaned in closer like she wanted to hear more.

"Oh, spare me the foreplay," I said.

She shot me a look promising retaliation. "You planning on explaining about giving up your powers?" she asked Preston.

"Nope."

Fighting with Preston would get me precisely nowhere. He'd suffered as much, if not more than me. I flung my arms around him. "Gimme some love, sunshine."

"We are the Winters-Morgan alliance. Resistance is futile." Preston spoke in a computer voice as he hugged me back. For about twenty seconds before he shrugged me off. "Enough touching."

I pasted an anxious smile on my face. "Yeah, so after all that, turns out the ritual doesn't involve sex. It involves us falling in—"

Preston scowled at me and stomped off.

I ran after him, Bex and Grant trotting after me. "We were wrong about Zach."

Preston stared at me, deadpan. "Really? Where's my chain?"

"I don't have it yet. But I'm sure he'll be coming back with it any time now. See …" I explained the entire story of my escape and reunion with Zach as we walked back to the dorm.

Preston just looked grimmer and grimmer the further into my tale I got. The only time he didn't look all thundercloud was when I mentioned warding up the location. By his creased forehead and intense look of concentration, I knew Preston'd switched over to figuring out how exactly to solve that puzzle. "It's doable," was his only comment.

As I wrapped up, Bex patted my hand in sympathy, just as Grant attempted to clasp her other hand.

She swooped out of his grasp.

I threw her an "oh really?" look as I tugged on the school doors on the side of the building.

Locked.

She threw me a "not even" look back, but at least had the good graces to look like she knew she was full of it. I gave a wan smile, happy to be part of teen normality, and hurried around to the front of the school with my little entourage.

"Cam," Preston began.

"Not now, Winters," I replied wearily, tromping up the front stairs.

"Code red 'need to know' situation happening," he insisted.

I waved him off. I didn't really care. I needed to sleep and get my head together.

"If she just gets up to our room, maybe it can wait a bit," I heard Bex tell him.

"What she said," I echoed. I threw open the front door of Gallagher Academy, walked into the blissfully warm foyer with its red and white tiles and cluttered announcement board, inhaled the comforting smells of lemon polish and bleach, and ran slam into Principal Solomon.

"Where in God's blazes have you been, young lady? We've been worried sick!" An angry flush spiked his cheeks.

I didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry," I eeked out. There was now grey shot through his short, black locks. I had a sinking feeling I'd put it there.

He turned to Bex and Preston. Grant had made himself scarce. "Go," he said, in a tone that brooked no argument, before taking me by the shoulders with his ex-football player hands and propelling me through the front office into his.

"Sit," he commanded in that same voice.

I slumped into my favorite chair, with no clue what to expect. This chair and I were on intimate terms, since I'd been called in to Solomon's office way too many times. But that was usually because of some run-in with Tina. And I could mostly get myself out of those lectures.

I wasn't sure how to explain my two month absence. Especially when I was already on probation. Considering Gallagher Academy was the one place warded up to keep me safe, now, more than ever, it was a no brainer that I had to stay here until we figured out exactly how I could get Persephone's memories back and protect the ritual location. I couldn't risk Zeus or Hades getting hold of me.

I had become the poster child for "stay in school."

Principal Solomon sat behind his desk and looked me over as if to ensure I was really there.

I took some comfort from the familiar smell of his fatherly cologne. I really liked and respected Solomon. And I think he had a soft spot for me, given my continued enrollment despite being a royal pain in his ass a lot of the time. I felt terrible that I couldn't share what had happened and let him understand that I hadn't just ditched school. Wasn't trying to disappoint him.

I squirmed in my chair guiltily, knowing I was doing precisely that.

Before I could figure out what, exactly, I should say, Solomon spoke. "A boy is no reason to run away, Cammie."

Hello? Say what?

"Tina told us," he explained, obviously misunderstanding my look of shock. "I understand that the adolescent years are a time of overwhelming emotions. And crushes that feel like you'll die if they aren't reciprocated. But to threaten both Tina and Zach, to the point where he felt uncomfortable staying here?" He sighed and folded his hands on his cluttered desk. "It's not right. Running away, most certainly out of remorse, is the one detail that makes me think you're not beyond help. It's the one reason we haven't expelled you."

Delusional Adult Syndrome, I guess. But if it worked in my favor, then great.

He looked at me as if to signal that it was my turn to talk.

Words failed me. That cow had taken her manipulative lies to a whole new level.

I hadn't asked for any of this. My powers. My responsibility. The whole love mind trip. But I was dealing best I could. Actively trying the best I knew how.

I'd just lost two months of my life and survived my psychotic father, only to come back and discover that my principal thought I was a stalker runaway and that Tina had twisted her bully status into cemented victimhood.

I couldn't help it. I started to shake. With rage. Lucky for Solomon, I didn't have enough in me to start blasting everything in sight. "I'm sorry," I repeated again, keeping my eyes downcast and my nails digging into my palms.

Principal Solomon handed me a box of tissues. Guess he thought I was crying.

A knot formed in my stomach as I thought about Rachel, my adoptive mom. Any more infractions from me and she'd be thrilled to kick me off her meal ticket. Which meant no tuition money, no enrollment, no Gallagher Academy, and, by extension, no Cammie.

I risked a glance at my principal. "What did Rachel say?"

"She was," he hesitated slightly, "concerned."

Translation? She hadn't given a damn and he just wanted to spare my feelings. Unsurprising but still crushing. Although when weighed against Zeus', maybe a slightly more positive parental response to having your kid take off.

Wow. I was really reaching for crumbs of affection here. "Tell me."

Principal Solomon frowned, like he really didn't want to say anything.

I nodded tersely for him to continue.

"We couldn't get hold of her for the first little while." He sighed, fiddling with a paperclip. "Then she made it clear that she wasn't interested in putting out a missing person's report on you." The pity in his eyes was probably the most upsetting part. "I did anyway, but you weren't exactly a top priority for them. I'll let the authorities know you've returned."

Yikes. I took a shuddery breath and looked at the upside. The fact that he wasn't booting me out, meant Rachel was still footing the bills.

"Here's what I think we should do," Principal Solomon said. He paused, thinking. "Classes are pretty lax this first week back from winter break. It's Thursday now," he clarified.

Guess he wasn't sure if I'd kept track of time during my stay on the streets. Regardless, it was good to have the info, if shocking that I was into mid-January with no memory of December. Happy New Year to me.

"Lay low. Get your strength up. Sunday morning, you come back at 9AM and see me. I'll set a a meeting with myself, a child psychologist, and Rachel."

I couldn't help it. I laughed. I'd been there long enough for him to know that Rachel wouldn't interrupt her life on my account.

"I will do my best to encourage your mother to attend," he said. "She needs to take an interest in this. In you."

"Hey, why not. First time for everything, right?" I set the tissue box back down on his desk, careful not to topple a pile of papers.

"We'll assess where you're at and the state of your general wellbeing. Then decide on the best course of action. Best case scenario, mandatory counseling." He stood, bracing his big frame against his desk.

"And worst?" I pushed my chair back and stood.

"Given the fact you were already on probation when you left? Expulsion. So it's imperative you don't miss the meeting." He paused and gestured at me, palm up. "Help us out, Cammie. I want you to stay but it's out of my hands now and onto official record. Be your best self and convince the psychologist your continued attendance here is in everyone's benefit."

"Yes," I said quietly. "I will."

I was going to have to plead my case harder than I'd ever done or die trying.

Possibly literally. Not to mention that I really didn't want to disappoint him. "I'm sorry," I said again.

Except I wasn't. I felt bad about his impression of the situation but I was furious that I had to pretend to be sorry and beg to stay when none of this had been my doing. I hated Rachel for not taking an interest and I hated Zeus for taking too much of one. I wanted to show Solomon who I really was. What I was really capable of.

Instead, I shuffled meekly out of his office.

That meeting wasn't even the kicker, though.

Nope. That honor was reserved for hitting the main hall only to find a giant banner of Tina Walters draped over one of the school windows like our new flag.

"I'm in power now, loser," Tina hissed with glee into my ear.

O.M.G.

**A/N: Now Grant's here! And he's the god of love! What do you think? Please review!**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Ego, much?

I pushed past Tina, knocking her back. Of all my options at this moment—showering, eating, napping, talking to Preston and Bex about how to proceed, obsessing over what was going to happen with Zach—none included listening to Ms. Self-Important spout off about her magically amped up, off-the charts popularity and hotness. Gifts received, I might add, from willingly serving that same dragon Delphyne in whose lair I'd almost died.

Delphyne had been killed. Sadly, Bex had deemed Tina off limits to exterminate.

The sacrifices I made in the name of friendship.

I glanced up at the banner again. Upon closer examination, ("closer" being a relative term, meaning you'd have to be blind to miss it), I realized that it was actually an enormous blow up of the cover of _SHE_ magazine. _SHE_ being comparable to a wildly popular bastard child of _People_ and _Vogue_.

A glittery, gold, hand-painted sign attached to the top read "Way to go, Tina! Gallagher Academy's star and Winter Formal Queen!"

Ugh. Winter formal. I never felt comfortable in the fancy clothes and hated sitting and watching those stupid slow dances where guys tried to cop a feel. Spare me.

Tina wore the same outfit now that she did in the cover photo; a yoga ensemble in muted green that looked so soft, the bamboo fibers had probably been pre-sucked by baby pandas to give it the perfect texture.

"Taking gag photos now?" I asked, since she now strode beside me, gloating.

"Got a modeling gig," she tossed back. "And about to start filming my new show. So suck it." Tina snapped her fingers and her best minion friend, Courtney Bauer, came running over.

I stopped at the foot of the stairs that would take me back up to my dorm on the second floor. About half of the kids were day students only, but I had been a boarder at Gallagher Academy since Rachel dumped me there in grade one.

"The universe blesses me with bounty," Tina said.

"And you repay it with bullshit." I was sick to death of the new age "wisdoms" that she trotted out whenever others were around.

"Tina navigates Gaia's children through the world," Courtney parroted, looping her high, sleek ponytail around her finger.

"Goody for you." I placed a foot on the bottom stair but was yanked back by Tina.

She shot me a smug smile. "Shirt," she commanded in a bored tone. Courtney grabbed a passing eighth grader named Bella, who sported a purple T-shirt.

Tina tapped it for clarification.

On it was silkscreened Tina's silhouette in downward dog position and the text "Divine your inner power. _Doggy Style_ with T. This fall."

I looked up from the shirt back to Tina. "Wow. That's really impressive the way you combine self-empowerment and porn moves. Who are your gurus? The Kardashians?"

"Don't talk to Yogi T that way," Bella said hotly, her anger almost manifest.

"Ignore her," Tina replied to her rabid fan. "She is of the unenlightened and does not have your dragon spirit. Now, go get the foot bath and nail polish basket from my room and prep for my pedi. Bring the pumice stone." She snapped her fingers. "Move."

Bella looked dismayed. "Foot massage?" She squirmed. "I don't really like feet."

Tina smiled at her. "Your karma will be especially enhanced then when you help me look so fab."

"It will? Still …" Bella gritted her teeth. "Feet."

I was done here. I started up the first few steps, my body heavy with fatigue. Man, was I sore.

"Think of how wonderful it would feel to bring me such joy."

I glanced over my shoulder, rolling my eyes in time to see Tina place her hand on Bella's arm. Like some kind of blessing.

Bella radiated devotion. It wasn't even diminished when Tina shoved her away abruptly.

"On it, T!" Bella trilled, racing up the stairs, two at a time.

I slowed. That was somewhat disconcerting.

No. I had bigger problems. I did not want to get involved.

But if Tina was up to magically enhanced no good, it seemed I had no choice. With a sigh, I tromped back down the stairs.

Tina peered at her hand in disgust. "Uck. I keep forgetting I don't have to touch them." She held out her hand and Courtney squirted a blob of hand sanitizer into it.

"Don't piss T off," Courtney said as I rejoined them.

Tina swung her head and glared at Courtney haughtily. "Do I look like I need you to talk for me? Go do something useful and get me some coconut water."

Tina's rudeness didn't even phase Courtney. She just sashayed off, commandeering some guy to do her bidding. If she couldn't be top dog, she was sure going to enjoy being second-in-command.

I was more concerned with what I'd just witnessed. "Did you just zombify Bella?"

"As if I'd hang with the undead."

Fair point. But still. I looked around and realized with growing horror that it wasn't just one banner and one T-shirt. Photos of Tina were plastered everywhere, being fawned over by groups of rapt kids in "T" shirts.

"I don't understand …" I stammered. "I was only gone two months. How is this possible? What did you do to them?"

"I didn't have to do anything," she shot back. "The people love me." She smoothed back a strand of her hair.

"You mean they're susceptible to the popularity hit Delphyne gave you."

Tina shrugged. "Most of them already admired me. Now they feel good knowing I care about them, too."

"Which you don't," I retorted.

"Oh, but I do." She gestured widely with her hands, including all of her followers like some kind of demented Dalai Lama. " I love everyone who loves me."

I narrowed my eyes. "Everyone willing to do what you want."

Tina waved a hand. "Same same. It's a win-win situation."

Uh-huh. "And for those smart enough not to love you?"

Her eyes glittered with a hard satisfaction. "Trust me. There are very few of those."

I threw her a "get real" look. "There are billions of them, Tina. Sorry to burst your bubble but there's a world bigger than Gallagher Academy." I gestured at the banner. "Or the readership of _She_."

Tina tossed her hair. "That's where Nick Cross, Head of Wing Media comes in. Even _you_ must have heard of him."

My palms glowed. Had I been able, I would have walloped her into a wall at her contempt for me. Instead, I dialed it back and poked her hard in the chest. Tina was one of the few humans who knew all about me, so periodic reminders of the bodily harm I could do never hurt. "Don't push me."

You'd have to be living under a rock not to know Nick Cross. His reality TV shows like _Snake Eyes_ (wannabe gamblers seeking fame and fortune) and _Wrong_ _Note_ (wannabe musicians seeking same) were watched globally. But the show that hit stratosphere proportions for both popularity and trash-factor was _Endgame_, where contestants fought chess "battles" as weird pageantry met Japanese game show-style challenges in a race across a giant chessboard.

Nick Cross was the ultimate puppet master of reality TV. But I still didn't see the connection. "What's the deal?"

Tina was more than happy to enlighten me. She leaned in, making sure I followed every word. "He adores me. See, it turns out that my charms are amplified on video. I had Nick twisted around my little finger in a second. I requested fame and he happily complied. I'm multi-media now, bitch." Tina gave a satisfied smirk at my dawning understanding.

Nick's global reach plus Tina's magicked charms equaled one very worrisome situation.

"Saturday," she continued, starting up the stairwell, me the one now trotting at her heels, "I'll be crowned Winter Formal Queen. Nick's going to feature the video as the final segment on his show _Global Voyeur_. Cross-posted across all platforms as a final ramp up to _Doggy Style_. To really cement the idea of me being media royalty." She paused, a thoughtful look on her face. "I _have_ always wanted to land a prince."

I stepped in close. "Over my dead body."

She smiled. As if that could be arranged. "Soon after the dance," she continued, "my show goes on the air. The masses will worship me. I'm going to be the world's most famous celebrity." She continued up the steps.

"For bending over?" I asked motioning to the image of Tina in her downward dog on some passing kid's T-shirt. "How appropriate." The situation was worse than I thought if this media mogul thought a show called _Doggy Style_ was appropriate for a teen host.

"I'm going to promote wisdom, fashion, and the importance of social hierarchies in schools," she said.

"You mean bullying."

"Potato, potahto." Tina gave me a sweet smile that, with her dark brown hair and big brown eyes should have seemed like innocence personified.

Instead I just saw it for the evil it was, masked by a magically enhanced pretty face.

Her smile widened. "Soon there will be no place for people like you. Oh, and you specifically. I'll have it all. And you? What have you got? Vines. That you can't even show anyone because they'd CIA your ass into Area 51 and study you like the freak show you are." She tapped her chin thoughtfully with her index finger. "Or maybe I'll turn you in myself if you don't back off Zach. Why have a prince when I can have a god?"

Technically, he was both. And she was getting neither. Whatever relationship she may or may not have had with him? That was over. Competing with Persephone was one thing, but damned if I'd let Tina think she got to be part of the mix any longer.

I flicked a finger against Tina's sleeve under which I knew was the tattoo given to her by Delphyne the dragon. A ring of laurel leaves circling her arm, with a small dragon hidden in them, the tattoo was the source of her cranked up popularity and beauty.

I didn't say a word. Just smiled to remind her that I could blast her arm off any time I wanted. Well, as soon as I had fully recharged. Not that she needed to know that.

I made a quiet zapping noise. For added emphasis.

Tina removed my hand from her arm and tsked me. "I've got protectors now." And with that, she turned and flounced off.

"What the hell kind of bizarro world did I come back to?" I demanded as I threw open the door to the raspberry-colored bedroom I shared with Bex.

How incredible to be back amidst Bex's meticulously organized gym equipment, books, and field hockey gear, and my random clutter of mementos like postcards from Bex and wind-up toys from Preston. Not to mention my comfy, excellently tricked out blue bedding.

I cocked an expectant eyebrow at Preston and Bex. They stared back at me, then started talking at once, trying to explain.

The gist of it, as I finally understood, was that Tina really had caught the attention of this media mogul. Snowed like everyone else, he threw a lightning-fast campaign behind her. First she'd had the magazine cover. Next, Nick had hired social media experts to up Tina's online presence with videos of her doing nothing more beyond hanging out and spouting Tinaisms.

So _verrah_ glad I'd missed that.

And after she was crowned Winter Formal Queen, she would be flown off to begin filming her her yoga/talk show where she'd do a few moves with celebs and then gab.

Goddess help us all. Tina was going to achieve the dream of far too many. To be famous for nothing. And she was pursuing it with a vengeance.

"She has to be stopped," I said, and flopped onto the downy comforter on my bed. It was the most heavenly feeling ever. "No way does she get to spread her vapid and dangerous ideas to the willing masses. I mean, what's the point of saving humanity if this is what I'm saving it for? Uh-uh. Her infamy ends now."

A quiet knock at the door shut us all up. Grant poked his head in. Bex motioned for him to enter and close the door again.

I rolled onto my stomach. "Let's just figure out some way to contain her quickly because remembering the location is top priority."

"Sorted," Grant said, sinking into my desk chair, all sorts of dreamy and decked out in dark wash jeans and a blue sweater. Bex did her best to ignore him.

"No offense," I began, wanting to be tactful then realizing there was no way, "but unless you're suddenly able to melt the skin from her face to film and upload to counteract her evil charm, then I'm not sure what exactly you can do about it." I rolled over, pulling the comforter with me, making a Cammie-cocoon, not caring about how filthy I was. Cleanliness and laundry later. Rest now.

Preston sprang over from Bex's bed to squish against me like I was some kind of giant body pillow. I could have pushed him off, but I felt warm and sleepy. And I'd missed him.

"Grant can make her fall in love," Bex said approvingly, looking over at him from her cross-legged position on her bed. She had her laptop on her legs, in her familiar hunched-over-the-screen position.

Her expression softened for a second. Glowed. And not from the computer.

Gawd. This girl had it bad. "That bites as an idea."

"Don't be such a stick-in-the-mud," Bex said.

"A mud-dweller," Preston added.

"A mean mudder," Bex riffed.

"A mudder—"

I cut Preston off. "Thank you. Yes. I get it." I pointed at Grant. "Okay, Blondie, explain this plan of yours."

"Tina tapped into Aphrodite's wrath vein with the threat of her massive popularity," Grant said, slowly spinning the chair from side to side. "Lady Macey gave me my orders go all Double-oh-seven and swoop in with my love gadgets. You're not the only female who wants Tina to go down."

"Grant is going to make Tina fall in love with someone horrible, who will make her pine with unrequited love," Bex set aside the laptop and rose from the bed. She had her hand on the latch to open the window when I cut her off.

"It's cold," I complained. "I'm dying of hyperthermia."

"You mean _hypothermia_, kitten," Bex corrected. "And you're not."

"Then I'm dying of 'poor Cammie, her dad was really mean to her,'" I whined. "Can I have some of your stash?"

Bex rolled her eyes but crossed over to her desk and pulled a bag of M&Ms from her drawer. "I'm gonna hurt you for getting outside the wards. You'll wake up one fine morning and bam! Poison dart frog in your bed. Payback for all the stress you cause me."

"Yeah, yeah, get in line." I held out my hand and beckoned. She came to sit beside me so we could share.

"Now," I said, munching on pieces of chocolate joy, "explain how is this a plan?"

Grant smiled. "Being shot by one of my gold arrows is a rather intense experience. Somewhat akin to having an anvil dropped on you. Not particularly problematic when it's two-way. But shooting Tina without the requisite mate? Bloody awful. Especially when I hit whoever he is with a _lead_ arrow. Normally, I'd use those to undo the love. But in this case, it will just make him repulsed by her."

"Counteract Tina's amped-up charm," Bex said.

Piece stopped the chair by propping one foot on Bex's bed frame."Leaving Tina consumed with this guy and his lack of affection. Instead of her fame."

"Now you're talking. Will she go mad?" I asked hopefully.

Grant shook his head. "Nah. The effects won't last long enough to drive her barmy."

"But they will last long enough to counteract Tina's mojo on the masses and not make her worth Nick's time," Preston added.

Grant threw me an evil grin. "Does a number in the looks department, too. Misery's a bitch on skin."

Bex fluttered her eyelashes at him like he was brilliant.

"Focus, Nygard," I warned, smothering a yawn. "We need a horrible guy."

"Too bad we don't know where Zach is," Preston muttered.

"You are NOT having Tina fall in love with him," I said.

Preston patted my feet. "Just more layers of everything being brilliantly messed up."

I elbowed him.

"Careful!" Bex squealed, as Preston grabbed her for balance. She scrambled to catch candy that had flown from the bag.

"Besides, Grant is going to have me fall in love with Zach. For the ritual." I caught a couple of pieces as they rolled off my bed.

Grant snatched a candy away from Bex and popped it in his mouth. "A ritual like this one, you want the feelings to be organic."

"Actually," Preston began, "that might be the best solution after all. Stab them just before the ritual with your gold arrows then undo it as soon as we've won with your lead ones."

"That's even better," I enthused. Minimum love exposure to Zach equaled maximum emotional safety for me.

"Are you even listening to yourselves?" Grant asked.

"It's brilliant," Preston retorted. "Cammie doesn't even have to see Zach until ten minutes before the appointed time. Better for everyone."

"I don't know if I'd go that far," I muttered.

"Even I'm uncomfortable with how mercenary you're both being about love," Bex said.

"Also, I didn't agree to help you with your Olympian coup," said Grant.

"Let's table this until after we've dealt with Tina." I winked at Preston and he nodded back. Between us we'd work on Grant and get him to help. Then I'd be able to save the world and not find myself emotionally devastated. Especially if Grant could undo the love as soon as we'd won. I'd barely even notice it had been a thing. Definitely the best way.

Because let's face it, even if I did fall in love with Zach, which was impossible, knowing I rated second-best would hurt. Although, yes, there would be meltiness having someone look at me like I was the center of their universe. It might make me all warm, having them light up because I had entered a room. Zach turning his gorgeous green eyes and sexy smirk on me when it wasn't just about whacked out chemistry but actual love, could rock my world.

And break my heart.

"What are you doing?"

Preston's voice startled me. I realized that I'd slid myself completely into my cocoon, face covered, my fists bunched in the material.

I wiggled back out, flushed. "Nothing." This was the most practical solution. I was sure Zach would feel the same. I snatched the candy package away from Bex. "There are a few imminent to-dos on the table. We have to help Grant stop Tina. Find him candidates."

"Already started," Bex said.

"Then we have to find and ward the location before spring equinox. That's when this all goes down."

"Equinox, huh?" Preston looked thoughtful. "Remember Zach once said you weren't supposed to be in Hades the night you were killed? You were supposed to be on Earth? That was the night before the equinox. Means Zach and Persephone were about to try this ritual before."

"And that might be what got her killed." Bex nodded decisively. She pointed at Preston. "Time to go make yourself useful and figure out the warding …" She trailed off because Grant had gotten all up in her space and gazed at her, enthralled. He leaned in to her, as if to inhale her scent, then trailed a finger along her jaw.

Bex scrambled off the other side of the bed from him. "Okay. Cammie needs to sleep. Reconvene later. Everyone out." She became very busy organizing the books on the shelf beside her bed.

I grabbed Preston's shirt before he stood up and pulled him in to ask quietly, "Why doesn't he just shoot her with one of his arrows and cement the deal?"

"Can't use the arrows for self-interest." He smiled in wicked delight. "Got to struggle through like the rest of us schmucks."

"I heard that, you wanker," Grant muttered as he passed by.

The boys left, shutting the door behind them.

I tossed an M&M at Bex to get her attention, bestowing a wicked grin on her when she turned. Time to torture my best friend. "What's the deal with Grant?"

She shrugged, sat down on her bed, and picked up her laptop. "I'm not sure I trust him. He's too pretty."

"You're too pretty, too."

"Nope. I'm beautiful. It's different."

I could have bugged her about her lack of modesty but I had something far more fun to taunt her with right now. "You _are_ the same girl who once told me that there were no fireworks or soulmates. Just chemical compatibility and mutual interests?"

"Yup."

"So having the ultimate fireworks maker, the dude responsible for earth-shattering kabooms, _the_ God of Love, live and in person hitting on you … ?"

"It's freaking me out," she squealed. "Shut up!"

I would have laughed but she did look upset. "Bex, there's nothing to be wigged about."

"Yes," she said looking directly at me, her caramel hair falling into her face, "there is. I'm not the girl who ever wanted some fantastical creature to love me." She swept the offending locks out of the way.

"No," I agreed. "You're the girl who demanded proof of their existence and then wanted to dissect them."

"Exactly. And sometimes …" She flicked her gaze to the door Grant had just left through. "Sometimes I can pretend he's just a normal guy. But then the impossibility of it all starts to run through my head."

My comforter cocoon had loosened so I tucked the corner back under me. "Stop analyzing it. Enjoy the attention, have fun if you feel like it, and don't let it stress you out."

"He's a god," she mumbled, looking down at her screen.

"True." I stared thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "But in my limited experience, they act just like guys. Really irritating alpha guys. I say go for it. You're sixteen. Have fun. You don't like him, dump him."

Bex looked aghast. "Dump the God of Love? What if that curses me or something?"

I tilted my head to look at her, puzzled. "Since when are you superstitious?"

"I'm not! That's the point." She'd set down the laptop and hugged her favorite pillow decorated with pictures of sharks, only considered cool by ten-year-old boys and one creature-obsessed teen girl. "This is … outside my realm of experience. I need more data. To get more information on what it's like to date a god." She looked at me hopefully.

"Sorry, Pumpkin. I wouldn't call whatever weird interaction Zach and I had dates." I flung an arm over my face. "Argh!"

Bex came over to my bed and tugged my arm off. "Speak."

"Zach and me needing to be in love is insane. You have to work on Grant and get him to agree to shoot us. Otherwise, all humanity is going to die. Sorry, but there it is."

Bex gave me a measured look. "Methinks the woman doth protest too much."

"You've got to be kidding."

She shrugged. "For someone who absolutely doesn't want to fall for him, I think you're most of the way there already."

"How many divorces has Rachel had?"

"Excuses. That's not the same thing."

My hands were clammy and my heart pounded. "If I ever do fall in love, I want it to be with someone safe. That's not Zach." My chest got a little tighter.

Bex nodded. "Fair enough. But can you turn off what you already feel? Especially after everything that just went down between you two? Because you're right, Cam. He's not the jerk we thought."

I sighed, remembering the wonderful weirdness of warm, pliant Zach.

"He likes you too," Bex said.

"Yeah. On some level."

"Except there's too much baggage over his ex, right?"

"A whole matching set with carry on," I replied.

Bex took my hands in hers. "You're freaking out because you don't want to be his second choice love."

Hearing it said out loud made it sound even more brutal than thinking it in my head. My eyes teared up. "Well, d'uh! It would be horrible. Him loving me out of obligation after learning all the first-hand memories of how he felt about Persephone?"

Bex pulled me into a hug. "Stupid Zach." That's why she was my best friend. She got me. Totally and absolutely.

But I got her, too. I pulled out of her embrace and gave her rueful smile. "Stupid Grant. I think we're gonna need more chocolate."

"Gods, yes," she said, and went to find sugar to cure all our woes.

**A/N: So Macey's coming in soon! What did you guys think about Grant? What about Nick? Please review! Also, I think I'll be able to post a chapter every week. The grounding's been lifted C:**


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